Small Formations - Clustering

VoKi · May 10, 2014, 1:22am

So, is it good idea, your enemy to launch attack on you with couple of soldiers with him? Not to kill them one by one, not every one of them to run around like in Mount and Blade somethimes, and fighting random enemies…Maybe the combat can be based on smaller ,teams’’ in the field with 3-15 soldiers attacking and defendig togeter. That can look very realistic and tactical.They stick together forming small military formation,ideal for pikemans or spearmans advancing together and attacking you simoultaneously.That system, can give feeling of tactical fight of small particles clustered together attacking each other ?

Ambaryerno · May 10, 2014, 2:11am

There were small-unit tactics during the Middle Ages. The foundation of this was the lance, which more or less served much the same purpose as a squad or fire team would in the 20th and 21st centuries. At least for the French this would generally consist of:

Knight - The guy leading the whole thing
Squire - The knight’s squire (duh). Alternately another man-at-arms.
Coutilier - In this period, essentially a mounted infantryman (later a light horseman, but not until the mid-15th century)
Two crossbowmen

The lance would travel on horse, however in this period the coutilier appears to have been considered an infantrymen, so he and the crossbowmen would dismount to fight. The knight and his squire would generally fight mounted.

The Germans did have a similar system, as well.

213 · May 10, 2014, 7:40am

in the kickstar trailer, during the scene on the battlefield, you can actually see soldiers moving around in the background in formation.

Dushin · May 10, 2014, 3:17pm

In the old days the formations were a bit bigger than modern day squads. Maybe in skirmishing 15 or less people would work together in a formation but on a battlefield that would not have been the case.

The lance mentioned above was not a tactical unit but a recruiting unit. The two crossbowmen would not fight together with the said knight. He could be on the other side of the field during battle.

Ambaryerno · May 10, 2014, 6:53pm

And what would said lance do if they were traveling away from the army and came under attack?

Dushin · May 10, 2014, 7:30pm

That really depends on how they travel. I assume the army with baggage train would not travel as lances but instead as troop type: Cavalry, mounted infantry, infantry. I actually don’t know of any army that was attacked by another army on the move (outside of the crusades that is), only skirmisher cavalry harassing an army on the move. In that case friendly light horse constantly rode around the perimeter of the army on the move to chase them off.

Ambaryerno · May 10, 2014, 7:49pm

My reading of the history of the formation is that the lance was essentially a knight’s personal entourage, so would accompany him any time he was abroad, and not just when he was with his lord’s army. So yes, there would indeed be times that the lance would be operating by itself, and might even get into a fight on its own.

The entire lance is known to have been mounted for travel. Early on the coutilier and crossbowmen would all dismount to fight, while by the mid-15th century the coutilier had evolved from mounted infantry into light cavalry supporting the knight and his squire/man-at-arms.

Dushin · May 10, 2014, 8:15pm

The French and Burgundian lance varied from 9 to 6 to 3
In a French lance the knight or man-at-arms was expected to equip his lance
In a Burgundian lance the Knight or man-at-arms only had to provide horses
In the early sixteenth century the French mounted archer of a lance was required to wear full plate armor, wield a lance and ride on a destrier/charge. He did not even carry a bow and was archer in name only.

Really the above should give some sort of an indication of how variable the term lance was. It could indeed be that the Knight or man-at-arms hired the rest of his lance personally for the muster and maybe they slept in the same area/tent when camped but on the move I doubt they would travel together. You can’t really see the lance as a tactical unit, you don’t really put a diver, an airplane, a tank and a foot soldier in a tactical squad since that defies logic. You would run against the same obstacles in the medieval setting. The two to three foot soldiers can’t keep up with the mounted soldiers in the lance, the light cavalry and mounted archers can’t charge, the mounted archer needs to dismount to fight (unless he has a small crossbow) and the heavy cavalry would not waste his horse on skirmishing or other light cavalry duties.